


An Inquisition Carol

by CuriousThimble



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Divergent, F/M, Friendship, Holiday, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, Satinalia, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 06:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17156924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuriousThimble/pseuds/CuriousThimble
Summary: Grace Trevelyan does *not* like Satinalia, and she has good reason. But when she's visited by memories of her past and scenes of the present and future, her heart begins to change.





	An Inquisition Carol

“Why the long face, Graceless?”

 

“Huh?” Grace stopped and turned to Varric. “Did you say something?”

 

Varric chuckled and put his quill down, waving her over to his makeshift desk. “You look pretty cheerless for the season,” he explained as she sat across from him. “Something bothering you?”

 

She shrugged, toying with the end of her braid. “Not...really,” she muttered. “I just don’t like Satinalia is all. I don’t see why everyone’s in such a good mood over it.”

 

“It’s a holiday!” he laughed. “They’ll celebrate for a week.”

 

“A holiday,” she repeated flatly, rolling her eyes. “In a run-down, drafty fortress with only a handful of livable rooms and even less functioning chimneys. How cheerful.”

 

“Now, now,” he cautioned, still amused. “We have a lot to be cheerful about. We’re all alive, for one,” he said in answer to her look. “We have a safe place to recover from Haven-”

 

“Where we lost a lot of people,” she interrupted. “Where Corypheus nearly ruined everything.”

 

“Is that what’s bothering you?”

 

“We have work to do!” she snapped and slapped the table, making his inkpot jump. “Corypheus is still out there! We don’t have the time or the resources to be playing at holidays at a time like this!” She stood, tossing her long black braid over her shoulder and stomped off. “I’m sorry. I just don’t have time to waste on this sort of nonsense,” she said over her shoulder.

 

***

 

“The day before Satinalia and we’re  _ here, _ ” Dorian muttered, “sloshing through mud and muck and constantly overrun with spiders. It’s enough to make a man’s mustache droop.”

 

“You didn’t have to come,” Grace reminds him, working another chunk of everite out of a stone facing above her. “You could have stayed at camp with Iron Bull and Varric.”

 

“If you think you were  _ actually _ going to get out camp alone you’re crazier than I thought,” Bull said, stepping into sight. “Did you really think we were going to stay behind?”

 

Grace closed her eyes and counted to ten. “I left you because you’re all a bunch of miserable sadsacks! All I’ve heard for two days is how you’d rather be at Skyhold. So  _ go! _ ” she shouted, finally ripping the everite out of the cliff. She has only a second to brandish the stone in triumph before a large section of the face pulls away and slides right on top of her.

 

***

 

“You’re awake, thank the Maker!”

 

Grace groaned and turned her head, confused. “Mother?” she mumbled, blinking her vision clear. “What are you doing here?”

 

Igraine laughed, tossing her head back with the joy of it. “I  _ live _ here, child,” she laughed, brushing Grace’s hair back. “My, that must have been some blow you took. What do you remember?”

 

“Um. Dorian and I were arguing…”

 

Igraine huffed, sitting back. “I  _ knew _ he had something to do with this! When he and your brother carried you in with some wild story about a branch breaking and falling on you I knew they were lying.”

 

“A branch?” she asked, pulling herself up to sit. “No, that was years ago, Mother. Today was...there were rocks.”

 

Her mother’s blue eyes widened with outrage. “ _ Rocks? _ ” she shrieked, making Grace wince. “Gerald! Gerald, you get in here right this second! And bring that no-good cousin of yours!”

 

Grace’s older brother slunk into the room, looking thoroughly abashed. “Yes, mother?” he said, trying to smile charmingly. Looking at him now, Grace would never guess that eventually, he would become the heartthrob of Ostwick.

 

_ Wait...he looks barely a man. Gerald is nearly thirty! _

 

Following close behind came a recently introduced relative from Tevinter. Grace’s eyes nearly bugged out at the sight of an adult Dorian Pavus looking so ashamed of himself, standing beside her childhood sibling.

 

 _What is going on? What is he doing here?_  she wondered. Memory cleared, and she realized where she was- or rather, _when_. When she was sixteen years old, Gerald and a distant cousin from Tevinter had been fighting with thick sticks, and she’d accidentally been hit in the head. Looking down at her clothes, she found herself dressed in the same leathers she’d been wearing in Crestwood.

 

_ But...But I’m not a child! And Dorian wasn’t even there! It was some other cousin we never saw him again. _

 

Her mother raged on, lecturing both boys- for surely, she saw only two youths and not the grown man- on chivalry and gentlemanly behavior. Confused, she gave Dorian a hard stare, but he only grinned at her.

 

“I apologize, Aunt Igraine,” he said sweetly. “Let me make amends by nursing my dear cousin myself. She'll forgive me, I know it.”

 

Igraine sighed and left, Gerald following like a kicked puppy. Alone, Grace pushed the blankets off And swung her feet off the bed. 

 

“Dorian, what  _ is _ this?” she demanded.

 

“Well, my dear Inquisitor, this your past, obviously,” he told her, twisting one end of his mustache. “You remember this Satinalia don't you?”

 

Grace thought back to the accident, and the wild loyalty and friendship for the short time with her cousins. “Yes, this is the year my father announced I was going to study at the chantry,” she said. 

 

“And the year you got your first kiss,” he reminded her.

 

A slow smile spread across her face at the mention of the long-forgotten kiss. “You’re right,” she said. “Wait-  _ how _ are you right?”

 

Dorian chuckled and offered a hand to help her to her feet. “That is for me to know, Grace. Come on, let’s go see it, shall we?”

 

Grace followed him out of her room and through the house until they reach the banquet hall. Far more time had passed than she’d realized, candles and torches were ablaze and a great fire roared at the far end, driving away the winter chill. People mingled and danced, chatting with family and friends they rarely saw while servants whirled around them setting tables and offering drinks. The hall was draped from one end to the other with twisted garlands of pine, winter flowers, and ribbons, the air carried the rich smell of delicious food, and music filled the spaces in between. 

 

“Your mother always throw parties like this?” Dorian asked as they passed through the crowd almost as if they aren’t even there.

 

“Why isn’t anyone speaking to us?” Grace asked, frowning. “Hello, Uncle!” she chirped, waving to a tall bald man in a suit of dark green velvet. “It’s like we’re not even here.”

 

“We aren’t, technically. This is a memory of your past, Grace. We’re just ghosts here.”

 

A chill ran down her spine and she shivered. “Are we dead?”

 

“Are we?”

 

“You aren’t being very comforting.”

 

He laughed and grabbed her hands. “Let’s worry about life and death later. We have time for a dance before the big event.”

 

It didn’t appease her sudden fear that she might be dead, but Dorian  _ was _ a good dancer, and she was breathless and dizzy by the end. Again, time seemed to have passed as they danced, because now everyone was finishing the Satinalia feast and preparing to pass around presents.

 

“Now...where is our little Inquisitor?” Dorian mused, scanning the crowd.

 

Grace turned unerringly toward the door. “I’d already left by now,” she said, pulling him along. “David had asked me to meet him by the fountain in the garden.”

 

“David, was it? And who was he to you?”

 

“One of the squires here,” she said as they passed through the dark garden. “He’d gotten word that I was leaving, and convinced my maid Lottie to give me a note.”

 

They turn a corner and stop in the shadow of a hedge. Grace, sixteen and a little shy, looked lovely in her emerald wool gown and her hair tumbling in casual disarray down her back. But she was alone, looking nervously around and wringing her hands.

 

“How pretty,” Dorian sighed. “You never wear your hair loose.”

 

A boy walked up quickly, out of breath as he softly explained something about his duties. Young Grace giggled and whispered something they couldn’t hear. With a smothered curse- in spite of having said they were ghosts- Dorian pulled her forward to hear.

 

“I wouldn’t have missed this,” the boy said, reaching out and tucking her hair behind her ear. “I couldn’t let you leave without saying goodbye, Gracie.”

 

“If you tell anyone about that, I’ll kill you,” Grace whispered quickly, drowning out her young self’s response as Young Grace stepped closer to him.

 

It happened as quickly as she remembered. One moment they’re whispering together while she toyed with a loose tie on his doublet, and the next he’d crushed her against him, kissing her with all the passion of his seventeen years. Grace sighed, her heart tripping with giddy memory, happy for the girl by the fountain even though she knows that the morning will bring heartache at their separation.

 

“What else happened that night?” Dorian asked.

 

Grace blinked away unexpected tears and turned to look at him. “My older sister found us like this an hour later. She promised not to tell but laughed at me for kissing a squire. I didn’t care, David made me feel beautiful. Poor girl, she doesn’t know how many tears she’s going to shed for him.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“He died exactly one year from this night,” she said sadly. “He and Ser Henry were returning for the feast and were set upon by bandits. There was an arrow in his throat.

 

“We all die,” he reminds her. “Some younger than others.” 

 

Grace nodded, watching the two young people totally enamored with one another. “My father said the same, but it didn't make it hurt less.”

 

“Is that why you don't like Satinalia?”

 

She shrugged. “A little.”

 

“There’s more.”

 

It isn’t a question, and Grace closed her eyes against the scene she knows is coming next. This Grace is eighteen, and dressed entirely in black, sitting on the edge of the same fountain, weeping alone.

 

“I don’t want to see this one, Dorian,” Grace whispered, turning her back.

 

“What is it, Grace?”

 

Tears burned, making her eyes red as she blinked rapidly and looked to the grieving girl in the garden. “It was my sister,” she explained, walking over to her younger self as if she could lay a hand on her shoulder. “We’d all been so happy, she had married a bann’s son and was pregnant with her first child. But the week of Satinalia she went into labor- it was too early,” she said brokenly as the tears finally started to fall. “It was too early and the Maker took them both from us.”

 

Dorian’s arms wrapped around her while she wept for her lost sister just as hard as Young Grace. “There now,” he soothed and handed her a handkerchief. “Old wounds heal, Grace.”

 

“Not these,” she sniffed. “She was my sister. He was my first love.”

 

“First loves are strong, like a good shield,” she heard. Grace whirled around and saw Blackwall leaning against a stone pillar and Dorian nowhere in sight. 

 

“What are  _ you _ doing here?” she asked, wiping her nose.

 

“What? I can’t have a pint like the rest of them?” he asked, grinning behind his beard. 

 

“Not in a garden…” Grace’s words trailed off as the scene changed from her childhood home to the tavern in Skyhold.

 

Warm and inviting, it was filled to the brim with soldiers, mages, her friends, and even her advisors, all drinking, laughing, and having a generally good time. Even her advisors were there, laughing as Sera imitated Solas lecturing on elven history.

 

“They’re having such fun,” Grace said, smiling fondly. “When is this? I don’t remember anything like this coming together since we got to Skyhold.”

 

“Right now, Inquisitor,” he explained. “After your accident in Crestwood, you all came back and they joined in the festivities.”

 

She looked around, noting her own absence. “And...where am I?”

 

“In your room working. You refused to join us.”

 

A shrill whistle split the air, making Grace wince as Dagna skipped into the room. “All right, everybody! Singquisition is about to begin!” she said cheerfully. “Everyone take your places!”

 

Amid groans of reluctance and sounds of excitement are a few confused questions and a particularly loud belch from Iron Bull. “Dagna, I don’t remember where I go,” Varric told her.

 

“In the back,” Cullen shouted, laughing at his own joke.

 

“Haha, Curly,” Varric said dryly, taking his place between Bull and Dorian. “I have a wide range, I wasn’t sure where she wanted me.”

 

“I know where I’d take you!” one of the serving girls quipped as she passed out beer.

 

Grace laughed till her sides hurt while Dagna did her best to whip them into shape. “They’ve been rehearsing?” she laughed.

 

Blackwall nodded. “We all got tricked into it,” he explained. “Dagna promised us new enchantments if we went along with it and practiced all week.”

 

“All...all week? Where have I been?”

 

“I believe your words were  _ I have work to do, not everyone can waste time on holiday foolishness. _ ”

 

Her heart sank, seeing how much she’d missed because she let so much get in the way of their holiday. “I see.”

 

“Not yet, you don’t,” he said and grabbed her elbow. “But you will. Let’s go.”

 

He marched her up into the keep and further to her quarters. “I can’t...see me, can I?” she asked.

 

“No, we’re ghosts here, too.”

 

A little unsettled at watching herself, Grace nonetheless turned her full attention to the woman in the room. Her mouth was a hard line, brows wrinkled into a frown, and her hair was pulled back tightly, revealing a pretty but stern face. She was bent over a stack of papers, quill scratching furiously and muttering to herself. With her free hand, she reached for a cup of tea and took a gulp before making a face and slinging it across the room to shatter against the wall.

 

“Isn’t it enough that I risk my life every day,” she snapped to the seemingly empty room. “I can’t even have hot tea when I ask! I’m going to have a talk with Josephine about our shoddy help around here- and Cullen too! What was he thinking with this exercise?”

 

Grace gasped and put a hand to her cheek. “Is that what I’m like?”

 

“The closer to Satinalia, the worse it got.”

 

“Oh, Maker! That's awful!”

 

“Well, she's right about one thing,” Blackwall admitted. “You  _ do _ risk your life every day, and for precious little in return.”

 

“They must hate me,” she groaned.

 

“Not yet they don't. For now, they're happy to leave you to your work. Anytime you’ve been around, you’ve managed to spoil everyone’s fun.”

 

Grace shook her head and walked over to the window overlooking the tavern. “It isn't their fault,” she whispered. “I just can't forget all those people who died at Haven.”

 

“Many of the people singing in the tavern lost someone they loved, Inquisitor.”

 

“I know, but it was my  _ job _ …”

 

“Let's see what's going on in the hall,” he suggested, and when she turned to go, found that they'd already arrived.

 

“This is a helpful trick,” she murmured, watching an army of servants moving through the hall.

 

The hall was chaos as decorations go up and tables were set, but Josephine stood in the center, a calm smile on her face as she checked something off her list. Her usual blue and gold dress has been exchanged for red and gold, and mistletoe woven into her hair gave her a festive look.

 

“Josie's so pretty!” Grace squealed, staring happily at her friend.

 

Blackwall only smiled at the woman, making Grace wonder if he was ever going to tell her how much he cared for her.

 

“My Lady Ambassador,” an elf girl called, approaching with a tray. “I have the Inquisitor's dinner.”

 

Josephine's calm disappeared and she cast her eyes to the ceiling. “Be careful,” she advised. “She's been throwing things lately.”

 

“Yes, ma'am.”

 

As the elf left, Leliana joined Josephine. “I’m surprised the Inquisitor hasn’t complained of the noise,” she noted.

 

“Oh, she has,” Josephine sighed. “And the scent of the pine, the cost of the feast, and the general air of happiness radiating off everyone.”

 

“Well, no one can say we have a frivolous leader.”

 

“But they  _ will _ say that she is too hard on her people and sets herself above holidays,” Josephine worried. “But if I’m honest...I’d rather she stay up there and not insult anyone.”

 

Leliana nodded, hands behind her back. “I think it’s best for everyone if she stays right where she is.”

 

Grace’s face burned with shame. “This is what they think of me,” she said softly. “I’ve become...not wanted.”

 

“That’s not entirely true,” Blackwall assured her. “But you  _ have _ made yourself not approachable.”

 

“We  _ just _ came from Haven a few weeks ago. Satinalia holds too many painful memories,” she said, shaking her head as time speeds up again. The hall filled with people, her friends as well as the few nobles who had come, all singing and dancing. She watched as gifts were exchanged, and as Dorian and Bull share their first kiss under the mistletoe. “How can anyone find it in their hearts to celebrate?” 

 

“Come on,” Blackwall urged, pointing her toward her quarters again.

 

Grace blinked and found herself standing on the balcony in the cold. “What are we…?”

 

A lone voice fills the night, strong and steady.

 

_ “Have yourself a happy Satinalia, _

_ “Let your heart be light, _

_ “For tonight all your troubles are all out of sight.” _

 

“Cullen,” she said, catching sight of him on the ramparts below. A lamp sat on the merlon beside him, allowing her to see him looking up at the balcony. “He can’t see me, I’m still inside.”

 

_ “Have yourself a happy Satinalia, _

_ “We’ll make Skyhold gay, _

_ “For tonight, your troubles will be miles away.” _

 

Grace plastered her face to the glass door, begging herself to look up and hear him. “Look up, damn you,” she muttered. “You’ve been mooning over him for weeks!  _ Look up! _ ”

 

_ “Here we are as in olden days, _

_ “Happy golden days of yore. _

_ “Faithful friends who are dear to us _

_ “Gather near to us once more.” _

 

“You aren’t going to look up,” Blackwall said.

 

“Yes, I will.” Grace’s heart raced watching Cullen stare up at her window, singing to a woman who refuses to acknowledge him. “Please, come out here!”

 

_ “Through the years we all will be together, _

_ “If our fates allow. _

_ “Hang Andraste’s star upon the highest bough...” _ __   
  


Cullen’s face fell and he stopped singing. “It was a stupid idea,” Grace can hear him say to himself as he rubbed the back of his neck. “She isn’t listening anyway.”

 

“Yes, I am,” Grace whispered back as he picked up his lamp and walked away. “Finish it, Cullen. Please.”

 

“Have yourself a happy Satinalia...now.”

 

She whirled around with a bright smile ready for him. But as soon as she saw Cullen, she recoiled in horror. His expression is blank, eyes as empty as a statue’s. Even his voice is flat as he says the last words of the song.

 

“Cullen, you look...haggard,” she said. “Are you sleeping poorly?”

 

“On the contrary, Inquisitor,” he said, hands folded behind his back. “The lyrium helps me sleep.”

 

“ _ Lyrium? _ I thought you’d stopped taking it!”

 

“It isn’t long after this night that you and I argue about it,” he told her. This time Grace is ready for a change of scenery, but she didn’t expect it to be his office. He simply points, and she watches as they argue about his addiction.

 

“Good. Just do your job,” Grace said and slammed the door behind her.

 

“I’d never…” she whispered in horror. “Cullen you have to believe me!”

 

“And yet, this is our future,” he said. “You ordered me to give in to my addiction so that the Inquisition could have my best. You were right.”

 

“No, I wasn’t!”

 

His office was gone, and she saw Iron Bull sitting in the tavern, drinking heavily. “I don’t like it,” he muttered to himself. “Those were  _ my men. _ ”

 

Grace frowned. “What is he talking about?”

 

“You left his men to die so you could have a treaty with the Qunari.”

 

“ _ What?! _ The Chargers are dead?”

 

Cullen nodded. “Sera, too. She was leaving, but you sent Leliana’s assassins after her so she couldn’t tell any Inquisition secrets.”

 

“No!” she cried as she was swallowed by darkness.

 

She was in the war room, watching Cassandra pace before Josephine, Leliana, and Cullen, looking even more ragged and drained than usual. 

 

“She’s gone too far,” Cassandra declared. “We can’t allow this to go any further.”

 

“Just what do you suggest, Cassandra?” Cullen asked dully.

 

“I...I don’t know.”

 

Josephine sighed and put her writing board on the table. Grace circled her slowly, seeing the pain and indecision on her face. “Ferelden will not stand for it,” she said in a shaking voice. “She’s left King Alistair no choice; he’s going to call for her execution.”

 

Leliana nodded. “I know him, you can’t assassinate someone close to him without the promise of retribution.”

 

“She thought she was beyond consequences,” Cassandra muttered. “What did she have to gain by it? Teagan could have been reasoned with.”

 

“We have no choice,” Josephine added with a nod. “We have to let it happen.”

 

“And the Inquisition?” Cullen asked.

 

“Better off without her,” Leliana quipped. “Cassandra can lead us.”   
  


Unseen by all, Grace crumpled to the floor, sobbing. “This is impossible,” she wept into her hands. “I’d never...I haven’t-”

 

“Not yet.”

 

She looked up at the sound of Varric’s voice, horrified by her own actions. “Varric, I didn’t-” she begins.

 

“No, Graceless, you haven’t,” he agreed, “yet.”

 

“Is this...is this my future? Really?”

 

He nods. “After Haven, you distanced yourself until no one could reach you anymore.”

 

“I just didn’t think we had much to celebrate...”

 

“And you couldn’t let anyone else enjoy what we  _ did  _ have, could you?” he asked reasonably. “We all tried to get you to join in, but you weren’t having any of it. This is what comes of that kind of attitude, Inquisitor.”

 

Tears streaked down her face and she let out a choked sob. “I don’t mean it,” she whispers. “Varric, forgive me. I’ll do whatever it takes to stop this from happening.”

 

“Why should anyone forgive you?” he asked harshly. “Look at what you caused!” he added, throwing his arm out to the war room. “Your friends turned against you because you turned against us first, Grace. It could be so different, too.”

 

“What do you mean? Can it be changed?”

 

He laughed mirthlessly. “Of course it can!”

 

The scene changed to a tournament, Grace glowing with happiness and dressed in a black and gold gown made up in the style of the old stories she’d grown up on. She was standing beside a lovely woman in a deep blue gown, Cullen moving toward her purposefully as she throws off a gold mask.

 

“What’s going on?” she asked.

 

“Just watch.”   
  


Grace watched silently as the other, happier version threw herself into his arms for a deep kiss. The small crowd roared, Josephine sputtered in surprise, and King Alistair laughed from the middle of a puddle of muddy slush.

 

“Oh dear Maker,” she whispered in awe. “Is this true, too? Can...Can we be together someday?”

 

“It can be possible if you change your tune.”

 

Her heart pounds, watching the two of them together. Grace had thought her feelings for Cullen were fleeting, a silly infatuation born from a dangerous situation. But she’d seen enough to think that perhaps there may be more between them.

 

“But he’s the Commander, and I’m the Inquisitor,” she said. “It would be inappropriate.”

 

Varric chuckled. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Graceless, but the lady there doesn’t seem to care.”

 

“It’s a long way to go.”

 

“You can have the time to do it.”

 

Grace nodded. “Help me, Varric. What do I do?”

 

“Well, I’d start with waking up.”

 

***

 

“You’re awake! Thank the Maker!”

 

Grace’s head was pounding, and every inch of her hurt. “Mother?” she groaned, raising a hand to her eyes.

 

“Not unless your mother is  _ this _ good-looking,” comes the manly chuckle.

 

“Dorian?” she asked, opening her eyes. “What happened? Where am I?”

 

“Your room in Skyhold, such as it is,” he said, looking around at the sparse room. “Hasn’t anyone gotten you some decent furnishings yet? I’m going to get with Josephine and fix this tragedy.”

 

“How did we get back here?” She groaned again as she slowly pulled herself up to sit. “Weren’t we in Crestwood?”

 

“And then you started a rockslide on your own head,” he informed her. “We brought you back here, and you’ve been asleep ever since.”

 

“What day is it?” she asked, her voice panicked.

 

“Satinalia, of course. Have you-”

 

“I didn’t miss it?”

 

He gave her a confused look. “No, but you shouldn’t-”

 

“Help me up! I need to get dressed!”

 

“Grace, you need-”

 

“Do we have anything for my hair?” she asked, swinging her feet over the edge. “I think I’ll leave it down.”

 

“That will be quite pretty,” he agreed. “You always have it up.”

 

“Maybe some mistletoe? We can twine it into the waves?”

 

Dorian’s protests change into disgruntled comments on her wardrobe, but he helped her into a simple red dress and sent a servant girl to borrow some ribbons and mistletoe from Josephine. An hour later, he helped her down the stairs, keeping one arm around her waist to steady her. The great hall was filled with chatter and laughter as everyone enjoyed a hearty breakfast. A small cheer was raised by her friends when they saw her, but her eyes searched the room.

 

“Is Commander Cullen here?” she asked Dorian.

 

“He doesn’t usually come here for breakfast, but...well, it seems he’s made me a liar,” he said, pointing to the wide doors.

 

The light was behind him, but she’d know that profile anywhere. Leaving Dorian behind, she passed through the crowd slowly, stopping and wishing people a happy holiday. When she finally reached Cullen, he wore a look of disapproval.

 

“You should be in bed, Inquisitor,” he advised sternly.

 

Grace smiled up at him. “Consider me chastised, Commander.”

 

“Are you feeling better, my lady?”

 

“I am.”

 

He nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. “I had...there’s something for you,” he said and handed her a small box. “I wanted to give you something- for Satinalia.”

 

Grace untied the red ribbon, wrapping it loosely around her wrist so as not to lose it, and lifted the lid. Inside was a gold pin made up in the symbol of the Inquisition, green enamel off-setting the golden eye in the center.

 

“It’s lovely,” she said, looking back up at him. 

 

“I thought you could use a good pin for your cloak,” he explained nervously. “Something appropriate for the Inquisitor.”

 

“I’m afraid I don’t have anything for you, Commander.”

 

“I don’t need anything, Inquisitor.”

 

Grace felt suddenly shy, almost as if she were sixteen and waiting for her first kiss from a beautiful boy. “I...Perhaps you can call me Grace?” she suggested.

 

He looked as shy as she did, and ducked his head, rubbing his neck. “That, my lady, is a worthy gift.”

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas and Happy Satinalia!
> 
> A friend of mine was looking for inspiration for a ficlet, and in talking it over with her, I found some for myself! I hope you all enjoy a quick fic I worked on between holiday errands. This is also the beginning of a new series, which will follow Grace and Cullen's relationship much the same way as Cold Hands, Warm Heart followed Alistair and Evette, so look for more in the coming year!


End file.
